Hilary Beaumont
Posted inArts + Music
The Authenticity Hoax
From Potter, co-author of The Rebel Sell, comes an attempt to explain our modern existential search for meaning in a hollow world. As I read Potter’s summaries of Hume and Thales I pictured my first-year philosophy prof—mad eyebrows dancing a jig on his forehead, who knows what in his Thermos—skimming the history of philosophy in […]
Posted inArts + Music
Hard-rocking women
Whether she’s performing on Canadian Idol or at Club 1668, Naomi-Joy Blackhall-Butler sways her hips, flips her hair and belts out husky melodies. Before the Aquestrya singer took the stage last Saturday, she chatted in the dim light of a closed Chinese restaurant. The temptress in a red dress and matching headband doesn’t fit the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Wheel style
When an SUV pulls up inches from her handlebars, Rachael Craig’s heart races. The Halifax cyclist says drivers often have road rage. “It’s very scary,” she says. “I don’t want to feel that my life is threatened to get to school or to get to the grocery store.” “You’re really vulnerable on your bike,” her […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
G8 not great
“Family-friendly” is one term we never hear connected to G8 protests but this year the Halifax-Dartmouth District Labour Council has asked protesters to be safe, not violent. In the past, protests in Canadian cities and around the world have aimed to shut down the meetings, almost at any cost. Not this year, Kyle Buott, president […]
Posted inArts + Music
Open Heart Forgery poetry journal debuts
Donal Power thinks the most beautiful word in the English language is the onomatopoeia “susurrus,” as in “Susurrus like a breeze through the trees,” he says. Power has 100-point font prints of his favourite poems on his bedroom walls. He likes statements phrased as questions? His sentences end in punch lines. His eyebrows dance up […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Grin and wear it
Paulina Szczesny’s knee-length dress smells slightly salty and crackles when touched. It’s stiff like parchment with texture similar to skin. A closer look reveals veins: pig intestine. Inspired by Mary-Anne Wensley’s intestine house at the Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery last year, Szczesny decided to break the rules. She bought sausage casing from a butcher […]
Posted inArts + Music
Three Sheet heat
Firefighters in full uniform jump from a red truck parked outside Elephant & Castle. The shrill fire drill still screams from the now-empty basement where a diverse mix of Three Sheet addicts thrives on the hip-hop group every Thursday night. “I wore my nice bra,” singer Vanessa Furlong says loudly over the buzz of 50 […]
Posted inArts + Music
Dan Mangan
Vancouver native Dan Mangan’s vocals on this LP will charm the pants off any summer road-tripper, via beautifully sung folk pop melodies, sometimes about coffee, sometimes about love. Mangan’s smart, soul-bearing album kicks off with “Road Regrets,” a song he wrote in 2007 while driving from El Paso to Austin, drinking gas-station coffee and regretting […]
Posted inArts + Music
Laura Dawe’s direction
The year is 2011. Due to war in the Middle East, the world’s demand for oil has never been greater. Unemployment rates have reached a high not seen since the Great Depression. The economic apocalypse is nigh. Painter and her boyfriend Michael escape in an old blue station wagon to an isolated house in the […]